Tech unemployment jumps as sector jobs slow down

It’s a slowdown.

That’s the news from the latest CompTIA tech jobs report for February. Unemployment in the sector jumped to 3.5% from January’s 2.3%—still below the national average of 3.9%, but quite a leap nonetheless. Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, said in a statement that the overall economic slowdown is affecting tech.

“We continue to see the lag effect of market developments working their way into government employment data,” Herbert said. “While employers across every sector of the economy demand tech talent spanning the continuum of tech job roles, there are pockets of employers recalibrating their staffing levels.”

The unemployment numbers were driven by a decrease of 133,000 tech occupations. PC and semiconductor manufacturing and telecommunications positions were hit hard, losing 1,700 and 2,200 jobs, respectively.

But it wasn’t all bad. Tech companies hired 2,340 workers, and tech services and software development added 4,200 job postings.

Despite the decline in the tech jobs market, employers across the economy did add 185,000 new postings, for an active total of 436,000 open tech jobs. IT project management had the most open positions in February (1,709)—a bright spot compared to a loss of 1,783 positions in software development.

Job seekers in California, Texas, and Virginia were in the top three states for tech employment, while at the city level, Washington, New York, Dallas, Chicago, and Los Angeles led the way.

As IT Brew reported this week, AI jobs have been a bright spot in an otherwise stagnant tech workforce economy. With higher salaries and a stronger job market, AI positions represent the growth sector in tech jobs. CompTIA found that AI jobs accounted for around 10% of open positions, essentially flat from January.